A 1964 film directed by Masaki Kobayashi, based on the Japanese ghost stories collected and translated by Lafcadio Hearn. The spelling "kwaidan" for "ghost story" is deliberately old-fashioned; the current romanization would be "kaidan."

The film is an anthology of four unrelated stories.

"Black Hair": A samurai divorces his poor but honest weaver wife to marry the daughter of a prominent family and thus advance his position.

"The Woman of the Snow": A woodcutter encounters the yuki-onna spirit and is spared on the condition that he tell no one of his experience.

"Earless Ho'ichi": A blind musician who specialzes in the historical saga "The Tale of the Heike" has to make a command performance.

"In a Cup of Tea": An unfinished story about a samurai who sees someone else's reflection, and a possible reason the story was unfinished.

Kwaidan won a special jury prize at Cannes in 1965 and received a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination.

Tropes seen in this film include:

Adaptation Expansion: "Earless Ho'ichi" begins with a retelling of the final Genji-Heike battle, only alluded to in the literary version.

An Ice Person: The yuki-onna, who is the personification of freezing to death.

Bed Mate Reveal: In "Black Hair," the samurai finally returns home to his former wife, and they share a night of passion. The next morning, he awakens to find that he's lying next to a long-decayed corpse.

Bilingual Bonus: You might be able to guess the ending of 'The Woman of the Snow" anyway, but if you know that "Yuki"—the name of the woodcutter's wife—is the Japanese for "snow", you'll definitely guess the ending.

Book Ends: The man's expression as he looks at the reflection at the end of "In a Cup of Tea" echoes that of the samurai at the end of "Black Hair."

Dutch Angle: Used for most of the final few moments of "Black Hair", after the samurai realizes that his wife is actually a dessicated corpse.

Forbidden Fruit: The woodcutter must tell no one of his encounter with the yuki-onna, not even his wife. Eventually, he feels compelled to do it.

Giant Eye of Doom: In "The Woman of the Snow", a giant eye, presumably a manifestation of the yuki-onna, appears and is watching the woodcutters as they stagger through the blizzard.

Gold Digger: The samurai in "Black Hair" is a male variant: he abandons his first wife to marry a woman who can give him access to more wealth and power.

Interspecies Romance: Or so the woodcutter discovers when his loving wife reveals herself as the yuki-onna.

Invisibility Cloak: A variant. Hoichi's master writes a magic inscription all over every inch of his body, which makes him invisible to the spirit of the dead warriror. Unfortunately, the master forgets Hoichi's ears.

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